My original plans were to fly out first thing Monday morning so I could be back in town on Monday early enough to put in a 10 hour day if I was working. On Sunday, I spent a portion of the day seeing if there was a way to delay my flight and spend some more time in DC with Dean on Monday. Because I booked through travelocity.com, I could not change my flight without stiff penalties. So, I went to work on figuring out how I was going to get from Silver Springs, MD to BWI airport. My flight left at 6::50 am so I knew it would suck to get up early enough to catch my flight. I called a number of shuttle services and most of them didn't have a driver or wanted almost as much for a ride as I would have paid to change my flight. At 10:00pm the shuttle I had booked informed me that they were canceling the shuttle for lack of a driver. It was not until 11:00pm Sunday night that I was able to secure a shuttle to the airport that would pick me up at the hotel at 0400 hours. That is pronounced, "O four hundred and the O stands for OMG it's early!" I showered, put on my clothes I was wearing for the flight, set the timer for 3:45am and crawled into bed.
So, it is now butt crack of dawn, I have had no sleep and no coffee and I am at BWI airport. I did not find a Starbucks but I bought a cup of coffee that was half-caff, thinking I would try to catch a nap on the plane. So, here I am sitting in the waiting area near my gate at BWI, looking and feeling like the all American girl, and in walks this guy who looks familiar. It took a few minutes for me to realize the little guy in the jeans, running shoes and parka, carrying a backpack, was in fact Rahm Emanuel. I sat there for a few minutes before I realized I could not help myself and had to at least say hello.
I approached him and told him I had to know if he was running or not. Remember, this was before he announced. I said I wanted to know if he was planning to run for Mayor of Chicago and he asked me if I was "dying" to know. I told him I was just curious and had considered throwing my hat in the ring as well. He told me I should run too as everyone else was running. I asked if he knew who else might be running and he mentioned Mosely-Braun, Meeks, Dart and I just chuckled. I told him that I felt it was my job to keep the candidates toes to the fire on the important issues. At this point, I could feel the crazy bell going off in my head, but there was no stopping me and I wasn't getting any more coherent.
I told him the first thing I would do as mayor was to take away all the cars/drivers for the top executives in the city government. The ONLY person who really needs a car and driver is the mayor himself. I resent the fact that people like the members of the Chicago Public School Board had drivers and cars. I consider this a matter of fraud, waste and abuse. Also, for the amount of money this city spends on flowers, they need to plant more edible stuff for the soup kitchens. He was chuckling and trying desperately to ignore the crazy lady when I gave him my parting shot. I told him that in the words of Ralph Nader, if he wanted my vote, he had to earn it as I would NOT just give it to him.
After a few more sips of coffee, I came to realize I had beat the man over the head with my crazy stick and I sounded like an idiot. Most who know me will say that I am passionate about my causes, but that I am also very intelligent and highly articulate. So, after they loaded him into the plane first (no, he did not fly first class), I told him that he should stay in DC and do what he did best, which was to be a pit-bull for the pres and continue to provide him with plausible deniability. I also told him that the job of mayor may not last past one term as the city was shaken by the news and might expect too much too soon.
Rahm thinks I am nuts, I think he has decided that he is the most deserving of the position, that he is entitled to take the job if he wants it and it is a foregone conclusion that he wins if he runs. I say F that shit and we need to nail down ALL the candidates not on the issues but on their ideas for solutions.
The City of Chicago is a great city. The city has run for, what seems like forever, on its "machine politics". "Machine politics" consists of the usual pay-for-play things that have been going on forever. I was raised on Chicago politics and know that it has nothing to do with what you know or what you can do, but who you know and what they can do for you. Mutual gratification at the expense of the city treasury. The first thing they ALL do when they get in office is to put their family, friends and supporters into well paying positions that they are likely not qualified to hold (think Stroger Jr.). The city is like a car and we have been driving it into the ground without stopping to change the oil. The city needs an oil change, NOT just a new driver.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
I went, I saw, I rallied on the Mall part II the Rally
We were late getting out the door of the hotel on Saturday, but with these kinds of things, if you are not there at O dark thirty, or butt crack of dawn, you are not sitting in the front row anyways. I am getting up in years and I was not up to a 3:30am wake-up call. We moved slowly but surely to the Metro and headed downtown. My only problem was that there is a Starbucks RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the Metro station but the Metro is as clean as it is because they will arrest your ass for eating/drinking on the train. With a heavy heart, and far too little caffeine, we went downtown.
I had map quested the journey beforehand, but the crowds tended to agree to get off at the Metro Center stop. There appeared to be a great deal of confusion as to where the actual rally was to be held but I was sure the crowd was headed to the wrong end of the mall. We got off with the crowd at Metro Center and headed out of the subway instead of connecting to another train. As we headed for the mall, I found a Starbucks whose line never moved. Seriously, you know a million gazillion people are headed to the mall for a rally and you have ONE person working the Starbucks?? Really???!?? A second one came out from the back room or restroom, but the line never moved. I finally gave up and in true tourist fashion, we stopped at a truck and bought hot dogs and diet sodas for breakfast.
We arrived at the mall about 10:30 and I forced us into a spot about 1/4 of the way back from the stage. We could see the stage and the people on it, but the jumbotron behind the first like 25 rows (?) of people blocked most of the action for us. Fortunately, there were speakers and a jumbotron a few yards in front of us so we saw and heard EVERYTHING! After we camped out in our spot, I made the brave journey forth to buy souvenirs, figuring that by the end of the rally all the good shit would be long gone. Noone was sure how big this thing was gonna be so I went with my original theory of ginormous. I was right. By the time I got back from buying schwag, it was 11:30 ish and the crowd appeared to go all the way back to the reflecting pond at the other end of the mall. Crowd estimates of 200,000 were on the light side of the guess and not the far side.
What pleased me the most about the entire experience were the people we met. Yes, there were some angry radicals from both sides. The kind that truly believe the louder you yell the saner you appear. Also, volume is directly connected to accuracy of your facts. But, for the most part, the crowd was composed of really cool people just looking to hang out and have a good time. There was a great deal of debate about what this rally was supposed to "mean". I don't know that it was ever supposed to "mean" anything, but instead, provided an opportunity for a large number of like minded individuals to get together to show D.C. that we were out there and would not shut up and go away. You can go to just about any site and find pictures of the signs that people carried. Most of them were very true, very funny and highly irreverent.
Where we were standing, and yes, we pretty much stood for hours (although I sat down a bit too), we were in the middle of groups of friends that came together. One large group to the left called themselves, "Mothers Against Insanity (?) Doing Something". The shirts acknowledged that yes, they were the MAIDS, but the back of the shirts said, "Don't worry, the moms are here." Priceless! The group to the right of us was a smaller group of hippy moms who, may or may not, have had small plastic baggies in their purses, and who passed around small bottles of hootch and chocolate candies. The moms on our left and the hippy moms on the right hooked us up with snacks, sunscreen and a few laughs.
For anyone who did NOT attend or watch the rally on TV, I will simply say that I am hoping like hell they release the thing on DVD. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that the entire rally could best be characterized by the moment in which Jusef Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) was singing "Peace Train" only to be interrupted by Ozzy Osborne with "Train to Hell(?)". Yeah, it was like that.
My complaints about the rally had nothing to do with the rally itself. I had lived outside D.C. and worked in D.C. for a few years, so I was very familiar with how things run when there is a march or rally in the city. What shocked and amazed me was the fact that the city seemed totally unprepared for what hit them. It was as if they had NEVER experienced a large rally before in their lives. AND, the Marine Corps Marathon was that weekend as well and their heads were still up their asses about that one. The Metro ran very few trains AND they were running really short trains. Even the CTA runs extra trains with more cars when there is a Cubs or Sox game. I know they had no real clue about how many were coming, but even I knew that there would be more like 200,000 people. The next day I heard that on a regular Saturday, WITHOUT an event, they could expect about 200,000 people riding the Metro before 3:00pm. The day of the rally they had over 400,000 through in that time. It took us HOURS to get home because we had to wait for trains. The ONLY advantage to going to the wrong end of the mall, and keep in mind those people could not see or hear the rally, was that they got on the trains before the attendees did so they got home earlier.
Next post, the day after and THE moment with Rahm.
I had map quested the journey beforehand, but the crowds tended to agree to get off at the Metro Center stop. There appeared to be a great deal of confusion as to where the actual rally was to be held but I was sure the crowd was headed to the wrong end of the mall. We got off with the crowd at Metro Center and headed out of the subway instead of connecting to another train. As we headed for the mall, I found a Starbucks whose line never moved. Seriously, you know a million gazillion people are headed to the mall for a rally and you have ONE person working the Starbucks?? Really???!?? A second one came out from the back room or restroom, but the line never moved. I finally gave up and in true tourist fashion, we stopped at a truck and bought hot dogs and diet sodas for breakfast.
We arrived at the mall about 10:30 and I forced us into a spot about 1/4 of the way back from the stage. We could see the stage and the people on it, but the jumbotron behind the first like 25 rows (?) of people blocked most of the action for us. Fortunately, there were speakers and a jumbotron a few yards in front of us so we saw and heard EVERYTHING! After we camped out in our spot, I made the brave journey forth to buy souvenirs, figuring that by the end of the rally all the good shit would be long gone. Noone was sure how big this thing was gonna be so I went with my original theory of ginormous. I was right. By the time I got back from buying schwag, it was 11:30 ish and the crowd appeared to go all the way back to the reflecting pond at the other end of the mall. Crowd estimates of 200,000 were on the light side of the guess and not the far side.
What pleased me the most about the entire experience were the people we met. Yes, there were some angry radicals from both sides. The kind that truly believe the louder you yell the saner you appear. Also, volume is directly connected to accuracy of your facts. But, for the most part, the crowd was composed of really cool people just looking to hang out and have a good time. There was a great deal of debate about what this rally was supposed to "mean". I don't know that it was ever supposed to "mean" anything, but instead, provided an opportunity for a large number of like minded individuals to get together to show D.C. that we were out there and would not shut up and go away. You can go to just about any site and find pictures of the signs that people carried. Most of them were very true, very funny and highly irreverent.
Where we were standing, and yes, we pretty much stood for hours (although I sat down a bit too), we were in the middle of groups of friends that came together. One large group to the left called themselves, "Mothers Against Insanity (?) Doing Something". The shirts acknowledged that yes, they were the MAIDS, but the back of the shirts said, "Don't worry, the moms are here." Priceless! The group to the right of us was a smaller group of hippy moms who, may or may not, have had small plastic baggies in their purses, and who passed around small bottles of hootch and chocolate candies. The moms on our left and the hippy moms on the right hooked us up with snacks, sunscreen and a few laughs.
For anyone who did NOT attend or watch the rally on TV, I will simply say that I am hoping like hell they release the thing on DVD. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that the entire rally could best be characterized by the moment in which Jusef Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) was singing "Peace Train" only to be interrupted by Ozzy Osborne with "Train to Hell(?)". Yeah, it was like that.
My complaints about the rally had nothing to do with the rally itself. I had lived outside D.C. and worked in D.C. for a few years, so I was very familiar with how things run when there is a march or rally in the city. What shocked and amazed me was the fact that the city seemed totally unprepared for what hit them. It was as if they had NEVER experienced a large rally before in their lives. AND, the Marine Corps Marathon was that weekend as well and their heads were still up their asses about that one. The Metro ran very few trains AND they were running really short trains. Even the CTA runs extra trains with more cars when there is a Cubs or Sox game. I know they had no real clue about how many were coming, but even I knew that there would be more like 200,000 people. The next day I heard that on a regular Saturday, WITHOUT an event, they could expect about 200,000 people riding the Metro before 3:00pm. The day of the rally they had over 400,000 through in that time. It took us HOURS to get home because we had to wait for trains. The ONLY advantage to going to the wrong end of the mall, and keep in mind those people could not see or hear the rally, was that they got on the trains before the attendees did so they got home earlier.
Next post, the day after and THE moment with Rahm.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
I went, I saw, I rallied on the mall! Part I, the journey
I am finally rested enough to talk about my exciting grand adventure to D.C. I am sorry to start this off by saying it was a sh*t storm in this country last night so now we need to start digging ourselves out from under it. I blame the Dems for not getting much done while they were "in charge", but I also blame the country for giving the keys back to the asswipes who wrecked the country while they were in charge. In the words of Tim Gunn, make it work people.
Off the podium, now we can begin.
The minute Stewart and Colbert announced they were holding a rally on the mall, I announced I would be there. I wasn't sure what the message/purpose of the rally/rallies was, but I knew I would be there. When I informed the roomie that I was going, he was quick to jump on the train for the ride. No pun intended, we actually took the Amtrak train to D.C. Dean booked a sleeper so I just had to pay for my train fare. Apparently, when you book a sleeper, your meals are included. The secret is to find the sleeper lounge in the Amtrak station so you will get special boarding priority and so you can book a reservation for your first meal in the dining car. The food was pretty good, but because we were not the first in line for breakfast, they ran out of food and we had to wait for first seating at lunch.
The train was FULL of folks attending the rally so a good time was had by all. The compartment itself was smaller then I thought but was roomy enough, after you settled in, to be quite comfortable. Dean had said he wanted the top bunk, but upon entry it was clear that; a) he wouldn't fit, b) there was no window, c) there was no way in hell he would have fit. There are bathrooms in the hall and they have a shower in them. Yeah, good luck with that. I had already planned ahead by taking a shower right before I left for the train. The bed was very narrow and not bad. The top bunk dropped down and the two facing seats fold down to form the bottom bunk. Tip to the traveler, ask for extra pillows! In case you were wondering, they come by your roomette and put your beds together for you and then come back in the morning and fold them back up.
We were 2.5 hours late into D.C. due to an accident on the tracks from a prior train. No clue where this was, it was like midnight in the middle of nowhere. We pulled into Union Station in D.C. and were able to take the Metro to Silver Spring, MD, to our hotel. While a part of me was sad to be so far from the mall, it was nice to get away from the madness to a quiet place at the end of the day.
Tomorrow, the rally.
Off the podium, now we can begin.
The minute Stewart and Colbert announced they were holding a rally on the mall, I announced I would be there. I wasn't sure what the message/purpose of the rally/rallies was, but I knew I would be there. When I informed the roomie that I was going, he was quick to jump on the train for the ride. No pun intended, we actually took the Amtrak train to D.C. Dean booked a sleeper so I just had to pay for my train fare. Apparently, when you book a sleeper, your meals are included. The secret is to find the sleeper lounge in the Amtrak station so you will get special boarding priority and so you can book a reservation for your first meal in the dining car. The food was pretty good, but because we were not the first in line for breakfast, they ran out of food and we had to wait for first seating at lunch.
The train was FULL of folks attending the rally so a good time was had by all. The compartment itself was smaller then I thought but was roomy enough, after you settled in, to be quite comfortable. Dean had said he wanted the top bunk, but upon entry it was clear that; a) he wouldn't fit, b) there was no window, c) there was no way in hell he would have fit. There are bathrooms in the hall and they have a shower in them. Yeah, good luck with that. I had already planned ahead by taking a shower right before I left for the train. The bed was very narrow and not bad. The top bunk dropped down and the two facing seats fold down to form the bottom bunk. Tip to the traveler, ask for extra pillows! In case you were wondering, they come by your roomette and put your beds together for you and then come back in the morning and fold them back up.
We were 2.5 hours late into D.C. due to an accident on the tracks from a prior train. No clue where this was, it was like midnight in the middle of nowhere. We pulled into Union Station in D.C. and were able to take the Metro to Silver Spring, MD, to our hotel. While a part of me was sad to be so far from the mall, it was nice to get away from the madness to a quiet place at the end of the day.
Tomorrow, the rally.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
